Joyce J. Raymond

Visitation for Joyce Joan Raymond, age 80, who died peacefully May 21, 2015 at home in Hoffman Estates, will be held, Friday, May 29, 2015, from 10:00 a.m. until the time of the Funeral Mass, 11:00 a.m. at St. Theresa Catholic Church, 455 N. Benton Street, Palatine.  The Interment will be held Saturday at St. Patrick’s Cemetery, Ripon, WI.

Joyce was the eldest of eight children born to Lee and Jane Betts in Palatine, Illinois.  Joyce helped raise her siblings when Palatine was still prairie.  She graduated from Palatine High School in 1952.

Joyce was recruited at PHS to work at UOP in Des Plaines, IL, where she quickly became an executive secretary.  Joyce met and later married Robert F. Raymond, but company policy required one of them to go since Joyce knew too much.  Stephen and Mark were born before Bob’s career took them all to England where Michael joined them.  After four years in England they moved to Belgium where twins, David and Paul were born.  Joyce never tired of telling new friends that she raised five sons and hearing them marvel, especially the part about packing them all around Europe.

In Europe Joyce acquired her love of antiques and her first-class culinary skills.  In Joyce’s house, no one went hungry; everyone was always in her kitchen.  Joyce and Bob met many lifelong friends in England, Belgium and elsewhere in the world, hosting them or their children later in life.

Returning to Arlington Height, IL, where the family lived more than 22 years, Joyce was entrepreneurial, opening Now ‘N Then Antiques, earning a degree in interior design and undertaking freelance design work, and becoming a successful real estate agent.  Joyce was never bothered by complaints that she was very late to pick up one of her boys somewhere…she was busy.

Joyce loved to travel, frequently visiting Kauai, Hawaii, and Europe with Bob.  Family vacations were adventures, usually including long drives and antiquing.  However, the sunsets of Fence Lake in Minocqua, Wisconsin, were her favorite.  All of these places gave her the endless joy of arranging groups for pictures.

Joyce and Bob loved the country and retired to Galena, IL and also spent more time in Minocqua and Green Lake, WI.  In recent years, Joyce delighted her neighbors with her smile and the sparkle in her eye that was present to the end.  Besides her parents, Joyce was preceded in death by her husband, Robert.  She is survived by her sons, Stephen, Mark (Marianne and their daughters; Laura, Michelle, and Carrie) Michael (his son, Ivan), David (Candace and their son, Frederick) and Paul, all of her loving siblings; Dorothy (Gil), Robert (Sandra), Margie (Jim), Jim (Pam), John (Lou), Tom (Cher) and Marcia (Rich), and over thirty cherished nieces and nephews and their families.